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Lite-On SOHW32S/SOHW1213S DVD-RW Drives |
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Contributed by Ronald
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Sep 17, 2004 at 12:00 AM |
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DVD recordable drives are starting to really take off in terms of the features available and the speed of the drives. Today, I will be reviewing two DVD recordable drives from a company called Lite-On. One has a maximum recording speed of 8X and the other has a maximum speed of 12X. Ever since DVD drives have been released, things have been a bit more complicated. There are more numbers to examine as well as the different technologies used in the drives. This review will help demystify the confusion involved when buying a DVD recordable drive as well as what to look for. Since most people buying a DVD recordable intend on using it mainly for creating DVD’s rather than CD’s, the review will focus on the DVD performance of the two drives. |
What's In the Box?
I must say that Lite-On’s package is very complete. Included in the package is the drive itself, Nero Vision Express, Power DVD, an audio cable, and several blank DVD recordable media, screws, and an instruction manual. This is just enough for anyone to get started making their first DVD easily. Although the manual is a bit generic and isn’t really model specific, it’s barely enough. The 8X dual layer drive came with a dual layer disc supporting up to 8.5GB.
Installation
Installing the drive couldn’t have been any easier. All you have to do is place the drive in the appropriate open bay in your case. Then you secure the drive to your case with the supplied screws. When placing the drive right above my other Plextor drive, I immediately noticed how much shorter the Lite-On drive was. This allows for a little more room in your case and makes it easier to plug in wires to the drive if you have a small case. After you’ve secured the drive, then you set the jumper if necessary, and you plug in the IDE and power cord to the drive. After that’s done, you’re done installing the drive. When booting up my computer into Windows XP, XP immediately recognized the drive and was ready to be used.
Differences Between the Two
As mentioned, one of the drives has a maximum recording speed of 8X and the other has 12X. The 8X drive is black and the 12X drive is a white/beige color. Both the 8X and 12X drive support the dual format. This means that they are capable of writing to both DVD+R and DVD-R discs. The only other difference between the drives is that the 8X drive supports Dual Layer Discs. A dual layer disc is different from the conventional single layer disc because it is capable of storing up to 8.5GB of data, which is nearly the twice the standard 4.7GB discs.
Features/Specifications
This is the part where we get to take a look at all the different numbers associated with the drive.
SOHW1213S*
The important speeds of this drive is that it can read/write DVD’s at a maximum of 12X, and it can rewrite at 4X. For CD’s, it can read/write at a maximum of 48X and rewrite at 24X.
Write : DVD+R 12X(16200KB/sec) by Z-CLV
DVD-R 8X(10800KB/sec) by Z-CLV
ReWrite : DVD+RW 4X(5400KB/sec) by CLV
DVD-RW 4X(5400KB/sec) by CLV
Read : 12X(16200KB/sec) maxmium by CAV
Access Time : 160ms
Write : CD-R 48X(7200KB/sec) maxmium by P-CAV
ReWrite : CD-RW 24X(3600KB/sec) maxmium by Z-CLV in UltraSpeed disc
Read : 48X(7200KB/sec) maxmium by CAV
Access Time : 160ms
SOHW832S*
The important speeds of this drive is that it can read/write DVD’s at a maximum of 8X, and it can rewrite at 4X. For CD’s, it can read/write at a maximum of 40X and rewrite at 24X. Notice that it can only write dual layer DVD’s at 2.4X.
Write : DVD+R 8X(10800KB/sec) by Z-CLV
DVD-R 8X(10800KB/sec) by Z-CLV
DVD+R9 2.4X(3240KB/sec) by CLV
ReWrite : DVD+RW 4X(5400KB/sec) by CLV
DVD-RW 4X(5400KB/sec) by CLV
Read : 12X(16200KB/sec) maxmium by CAV
Access Time : 160ms
Write : CD-R 40X(6000KB/sec) maxmium by P-CAV
ReWrite : CD-RW 24X(3600KB/sec) maxmium by Z-CLV in UltraSpeed disc
Read : 40X(6000KB/sec) maxmium by CAV
Access Time : 160ms
*numbers obtained directly from Lite-On’s website.
Lite-On Technologies in the Drive
SMART-BURN
SMART-BURN is the short name for ‘Smart Monitoring & Adapting Recording Technology for burning’. The important aspect of this technology is that it avoids the infamous buffer under run error. In essence, a buffer under run can occur if your computer can not feed data to your recorder fast enough. This technology allows the burner to stop if necessary and continue without a wasted CD or DVD.
SMART-X
SMART-X is short for ‘Smart Monitoring & Adjusting Read-speed Technology for eXtraction’. Basically, whenever you use different kinds of discs with your DVD drive, the technology tries to read from it at the fastest rate possible, but with reliability in mind. The drive will slow down if necessary to read troublesome parts of a disc to ensure that the read data is not affected.
VAS
VAS is short for ‘Vibration Absorber System’. As drives spin discs faster and faster, it is important that there is little to no vibration when the disc is in the drive. The technology automatically sense the speed that the drive is rotating and will adjust itself to ensure the least vibration.
Testing/Performance
Before testing the drives, I quickly opened up Nero’s InfoTool to determine the capabilities of both drives. As you can see, both drives do not support the Mount Rainier feature. Notice that the 832S has the DVD+R DL box checked because it supports dual layer discs. The read speed shown for the 832 is not the maximum read speed because the drive automatically detected the best read speed for the particular disc inserted.
Next we move on to CD and and DVD reading capabilities. For the CDR reading test, I inserted one of my motherboard installation discs. Both drives get awfully close to their maximum rated speeds and then it drops off at the end. It is expected that the 12X drive has an expected higher average read speed. Notice how the seek times for the 12X drive are slightly longer than the 8X drive.
When reading DVD’s, both drives pretty much reach their peak read speeds. Notice again how the 12X drive has slightly higher seek times. When reading DVD’s, the CPU usage is higher because much more data is flowing per second.
Burning a DVD on the 8X drive at 4X took 15 minutes and 20 seconds.
Burning a DVD at maximum speed on the 8X drive took just under 10 minutes. That is about the same time it takes to burn a full 80min CDR at 8X. The created DVD used the maximum space possible on the DVDR.
Burning a DVD at 8X on the 12X drive took just under 8 minutes. This DVD was created with only 4.2GB of data as opposed to 4.7GB. The performance is pretty much in par with the 8X drive.
Now it was time to see how fast the 12X burner could really go. It finished a full DVD in just at 8 minutes. That is incredible!
The last benchmark is done with the 8X drive to test the dual layer capabilities of the drive. An 8.2GB disk was created and it took a whopping 38 minutes and 44 seconds. It took that long because dual layer discs can only be written at 2.4X for this drive.
Conclusion
Both drives in this review today have performed well. All the benchmarks have shown that they are right on the mark. Lite-On has proven that they can make great DVD recordable drives with excellent features and performance. Choosing between the drives is a matter of personal preference. You can either go for greater speed with the 12X or you can instead go for the support of dual layer with the 8X drive. Keep in mind of the current market of DVD media. So far, 8X seems to be maximum supported speeds for DVD blank media, however, dual layer discs are not really as available and are extremely expensive. I look at a website and they were selling a 2pack of blank dual layer DVD’s for $50!! It is much cheaper to put your data on 2 regular 4.7GB discs than trying to fit it all on an expensive 8.5GB disc. Knowing that these drives sell for a little over $100, these drives are quite a bargain. I think Lite-On’s drives are still a bit underrepresented and can easily take on the big names such as Plextor and Sony.
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Last Updated ( Mar 01, 2007 at 03:56 AM )
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